Some More News - Even More News: Laugh Literally, Get Rich Figuratively

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

Hi. On today's episode, Katy, Cody, and Jonathan discuss the House Republicans' governing style (poor), the Apple Vision Pro's potential for changing our daily lives (maybe poor?), and the special counsel's assessment of Joe Biden's mental fitness (also poor). If you want to take ownership of your health, start with AG1. Try AG1 and get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase exclusively at https://drinkAG1.com/morenews. Check it out.  Check out our MERCH STORE: https://shop.somemorenews.com   SUBSCRIBE to SOME MORE NEWS: https://tinyurl.com/ybfx89rh   Subscribe to the Even More News and SMN audio podcasts here: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229   Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ebqegozpFt9hY2WJ7TDiA   Follow us on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SomeMoreNews/   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SomeMoreNews/ 

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to even more news, the first and only news podcast. Thank you. Thanks and gratitude to you. Hello. I am Cody Johnston of the Only News Show. Yes, you are. And yes, it is. And of course, as always, we got Jonathan. We got Jonathan. Bingo, bango, bongo. I'm here. Jonathan introduction time. How about that?

Bingo, bango, bongo. I'm here. Jonathan introduction time. How about that? Bingo, bango, bongo. I'm here. Jonathan introduction time. How about that? That's really good. Let's keep that. It's like he always says, bingo, bango, bongo. Sounds like a good piece of merch to me.

I'm just waiting for anything to stick, any sort of Jonathan catchphrase to stick so we can stick it on a shirt. Folks, in the comments, please put your favorite Jonathan catchphrase. Yes. Hit us up with your jonathanisms that the earworm jonathanisms that you can't get out of your brain you deserve some merch i do yeah yeah i think you do speaking of merch oh we got some new merch jen dice we should do this in a way that's uh thoughtful and organized and maybe put a social media post.

But we do have some new merch. It's cute. That's true. There are things on stuff. Check it out at shop.stomorenews.com. Yeah. It's a good site. It's a better site than the one that we were on, which will not be named.

Merch is great for holidays and speaking of holidays yes boy we got some how many well i've so many probably but we're gonna mention two okay because honestly i think that's all the patience that we can possibly ask of our audiences to go over to and february 8th february wow that february is a hard word to say february because there's that r in there it should be february should be but isn't but but it's not you know what i've so i've even said the name of the holiday i know we're taking a detour speaking of holidays in february so there's a commercial on one of the streamings or one of the apps you know um you're watching a show i think it's peacock actually

peacock is first of all the worst streaming app that is available it is a broken application the one to watch for bad streaming it's the one to watch for bad streaming uh they have this ad for a bunch of adaptations of like jane austen novels and stuff um and it's like big wow this month we're doing all the uh all the jane austen adaptations and like some old ones some new ones and that's what they're doing and they're calling it love you erie yuck january is right there folks it's right there january obviously it's it's close to january and you're doing it in february because of like valentine's day and the love month but like do it in january do it

january january is right there it's january is it spelled with a silent r is it l-o-v-r you it's a really good question i can't say i couldn't pause because there's an ad um but if i see it again i will make note of that. I think it's just Love-Uary. Okay. You know what? I bookmarked something on my peacock because I was going to watch that Kyle McLaughlin movie, but I didn't have time

before he was on. Oh, our friend, our close friend, Kyle McLaughlin, we're both actors, you know. Yeah, that was on the show recently. I can't remember what the name of the movie was um oh so okay so it's it was a commercial for the hallmark channel on peacock okay that sounds more like it yeah it's love you arie there's no dash it's just love u-a-r-y and again i get it well it's not it's for february i'm just just come on guys get it together what is it not

all right well that ate up a couple minutes of our holiday time. Thank goodness. That was a good one. We got a lot out of that. Today is laugh and get rich day, though. Oh. I don't know.

Health is wealth? Okay. That's what we're going with. Wait, what? Laugh and get rich day? laughing doesn't actually make you rich But it is good for you and thus makes you rich like figure since health as well rich enjoy rich in Belly aches, I don't disagree. Um, I don't either laugh folks laugh laugh it up you fucks Laugh it up Yeah, laughs. Laugh it up. Yeah, laugh it up.

And then February 9th, National Toothache Day. Okay. I guess this appears to be about practicing good oral hygiene. Okay, so it's not about saying, where are my toothaches at? Who's the people that don't brush their teeth? We're not in support of toothaches. We're in support of solving toothaches, getting's the people that don't brush their teeth we don't we're not in support of toothaches we're supportive solving toothaches getting rid of them yeah so preventing them folks i need to go to the dentist it's been a minute you should do that i know i just said so i know i'm agreeing with you you should do that yeah i agree with you completely i agree with you

completely so uh so when i say i agree with you completely that I agree with you completely. So when I say I agree with you completely, that's great. But when I say you should do that, it's a problem. It's the same thing. I mean, I understand. One is more forceful and rude. Yeah, I mean, like, Tom is everything, man. Come on. We've known each other for like a while now.

You know how information goes over well with me. I should do that. Telling me that i have a good idea that's a good idea you should tell me a good idea thank you that feels great you telling me to do something feels not so good but do something that you came up with that was your idea yeah yeah i agree with you completely about absolutely perfect all right well we don't have a guest to shoot the shit with but i want to you want to shoot the shoot a little bit we've had some weather in california you guys have been that's true underwater we've been really did not do so well with water did it no we don't do well

with any weather yeah we don't tolerate weather it was exciting i mean i like it because i love being able to see and hear rain and go outside and smell the rain it's one of the things i miss about living in any other state um yeah it was it was nice well part of it yeah yeah i loved it i hope everybody was safe out there and enjoying the i don't think.A. River, which was torrential. Some manic rescues of people in the L.A. River. And I think some people that did not get rescued. That's horrible. Also, I do live, without disclosing where, I do live not in L.A. proper.

So the bulk of it the big like the big the big rain i did not experience it was mostly just fun rain all the different parts of la that ended up underwater in some capacity or another it did feel like a lot just because i do live in la proper and it rained for more than 48 hours consecutively without stopping at all some of it quite heavy and nothing you know here or around me immediately flooded but i just left the my apartment for the first time today in like four days to put something in the mail. And it's like very clear outside today, very crisp. It's like, I think my favorite weather is sunny day right after it's rained. And like 48 hours of rain really does clear up some of the gunk.

You can see farther than you thought it would be possible in LA. So it's lovely. I was outside for eight minutes to walk to the mailbox. Back indoors now. It sounds like you both would enjoy living in a mountain environment don't you dare don't you mountain fluencer over here i'm making it work if you follow me on instagram we're trying a thing mountain fluencer i don't know is that because you moved there recently yeah because i recently moved to the mountains yeah no good got it speaking of the

mountains we got some weather as well was it cold rain it was cold rain well at first when the first storm hit for you guys it was rain for me at my elevation but a lot of wind like trees going down it was pretty cool and then yesterday supposed to get maybe a couple inches of snow. I got nine inches of snow. My car got stuck getting up my road. It was chaotic. But we survived. We lived to tell the tale.

That's what we do. Of the snow. You sent me a video of your car getting dug out of the snow. Yeah, I did send a video of your car getting dug out of the snow yeah i did send a video to jonathan yeah they were they were helping dig your car out of the snow while you while you filmed i filmed it also apparently supposedly helping in some various i did help first off jonathan i got my car as far as I got it, that was a big help. No, what happened is they were like, do you have chains? I was like, yes. And they were like, in your car? And I was like, nope. However, I was just down the street from my house. So I ran up to my house and I got my chains. I got my shovel and I came running, sliding back down there were two dudes there and

i tried to help he certainly taught me how to put chains on but my fingers were cold and it was hard so i no i didn't i did film it though and i sent it to you so that you can posted it on instagram hashtag mountain fluencer. Did you intentionally get your car stuck so that you can become a mountain fluencer? Hashtag content Jonathan. Oh Jesus. Okay. We gotta write this down. No. Don't write. Don't write

down hashtag content. Don't write it down. Cody we're in the hashtag content business. How else are we gonna? No we're not. This is the era the hashtag content business. How else are we going to? No, we're not. This is the era of hashtag content, Cody. I'm going to tag this episode. Content, Cody. Hashtag content.

Yeah, please tag it. You should. Hashtag content. Hashtag weather talk. Is everybody enjoying our talk about the weather? Just also add hashtag mountainfluencer. We're working on it, Jonathan. Trust me.

It's going to be a thing. Okay. Well, there's other things we could have talked about. Oh, my God. There's so many other things instead of the weather we could have talked about the grammys fast car incredible performance yeah chills tracy chapman and that other guy yeah what's his name luke combs all right well i guess we should talk about the news i like this house republicans in redisarray. You want to say your title, Jonathan? You said it. They always do Dems in disarray. So I'm doing House Republicans in redisarray.

That's a redisarray out. Yeah. And maybe that will or will not trend before Mountain Fluencer. But I don't know if redisarray is a thing thing but that's what i wrote so if you had a hashtag it'd probably be trending by morning that's what i wrote trend in by morning over the border specifically is the border in disarray yeah yeah what's up with the border jonathan the border remains there uh we talked about this political showdown last week with Margaret Kiljoy, but now the House Republicans have both rejected the Democrats' border deal and tried to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. failed to do that so it's made for a pretty embarrassing week for house speaker mike johnson especially because they were trying to impeach mayorkas for not doing the things that they want done at the border but they're not voting for the border bill which would do the things they want

because they think it needs to be a political issue this year for them. Every year, really. Every year, yeah. What a clown show they are. Just absolutely. I mean, what a clown show we all are. They all are. So real quick, the articles of impeachment against Mayorkas,

they accused him of willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law and breach of public trust over handling of the border. A lot of Republicans were not going for this because they said that even though they don't like the job he's doing, that it doesn't rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. Wait, are you suggesting that the Republican move of wanting to impeach everybody for anything is maybe not like gonna be working for them i mean it's just hard to be clear this is these impeachable offenses this breach of public trust is literally the man doing his job as outlined by his boss and the people currently in charge this is their their plan. We want to impeach somebody, impeach Joe Biden. And they will and maybe good.

Yeah, they are saying if we can show that this is a quote-unquote invasion at the border and Homeland Security is doing nothing to stop it, right, that's their argument. That would be like you are failing to you know secure

uh this country not even getting into the fact that like immigration is not bad but they are detaining records of numbers of people at the border arrests would not be as high as they are if they weren't doing that right right right i mean yeah it's the same thing it's similar to like whenever there's like oh they apprehended all this fentanyl at the border look at the chaos of the border well doesn't that mean that they did the thing that you want them to do which is yeah the record high at the border sure i believe that i believe that i know i have eyes and ears and i can see that there are lots of things going on in the world and why people are trying to escape certain situations and come to america but our whole immigration policy is different correct me if i'm wrong, but I mean, like, yeah, in the 90s and 2000s.

We just were also weren't tracking this in quite the same way. They've always have been big surges at the border. Well, there was a difference because back then people were largely trying to sneak into the country and not be detected. And now people are, you know, showing themselves to the services at the border, either to seek asylum or to try other legal means. They're presenting themselves to come in. So, of course, there are more encounters. So the number of people crossing the border for much of the 90s and 2000s was likely higher than it is now. Interesting. Yeah.

That doesn't come up ever. higher than it is now interesting yeah we don't come up ever well because that's what you know when you watch a tv or movies and there's like 50 people huddled in the back of a truck not that that doesn't still happen but that was far more commonplace back then so it's hard to have uh official numbers yeah now we get now we get the big caravans uh every one and a half years every two years about every two years around interesting around october around like the september october period every two years yeah interesting i want to point out the the way that this um impeachment of mayorkas failed because house bills aren't supposed to fail you're only supposed to put them up if you know you have the votes and they did have the votes uh when representative al green a democrat from texas was in the hospital but then

he knew this vote was happening and so he showed up and was the tying vote while they were like oh well we didn't think you were gonna do that we scheduled this vote when you were in the hospital so like this blaming from senator speaker mike johnson blaming quote people who show up when they're not expected to be in the building it's so funny you were hinging this on just people being absent it's so funny and like i said clown show it's just like gonna pass along and nobody's gonna like nobody cares obviously but like first of all mike johnson you're not doing a great job uh your first uh your first cracks at this at this job that you have now yeah good thing they got kevin mccarthy out of there yeah but also like just don't say that out like i know you know there were times when you would try to have a little shame and like not say well we thought we were gonna pull fast one on

these folks but they showed up instead um it is wild that he's just like yeah we thought we had the votes because we didn't but like the circumstances kept him in the hospital incredible and marjorie taylor green was like well, the Democrats hid one of their members. You know, they were they're hiding Democrats. Like, how do you just the dysfunction and just like even the messaging? You can't even get right. Marjorie, don't say that. Don't say that you don't know how many co-workers you have. Like what?

They hid somebody from you. Absurd. And meanwhile, now they're just like, well, we're going to do this again, but we need to make sure Steve Scalise can come in and he's being treated for blood cancer. So he hasn't been, you know, there for votes. And so now they're calling him up and they're like, hey, Steve, when you got a break in treatment, can you come here to do some light impeaching and then uh just a cabinet impeaching we'll let you know if we're impeaching uh the big guy the big guy can't they let him zoom in or

something yeah i thought they were i mean during the pandemic they were doing a lot of zoom votes but i guess that would be i guess they never embraced the hybrid yeah work office situation could have helped this nobody nobody wants to work anymore uh cody you wanted to talk briefly i think the democrats in the senate are like and we talked about this a bit last week they're like rubbing their hands together they're like oh we're gonna put up the bill you wanted so you can vote it down and then we look smart so we look super tough on the border which means all the people who really want a secure border are gonna vote democrat for sure yeah that'll get it that'll do it boys yeah this it's it's a little frustrating and silly obviously like it quote unquote worked out that way in that

yeah they put forth this thing and it didn't work It reminds me a lot of like every once in a while, the Dems will try to do this little switcheroo. We're like, we're actually better than the Republican Party at the thing that you want to do. They're actually, they're bad. They don't want to do this thing. We really, we seriously want to do it. But it's like a policy that is the opposite of what the democratic party their

constituents want supposedly is like putting forth so it reminds a lot of like um you know that period where dems were like actually republicans are against funding the police the democrats we want to fund the police but the republicans want to stop us from funding the police they're the defunders and it's like how many times are you going to try to do that and how many like how many republican votes do you think you're actually getting and are those the votes you actually want or do you want maybe like independents or non-voters or like people in your own party to vote for you and so to put forth this this bill bill, even, even if it's like, well, they're playing chicken, right? They're like putting there, it's like a challenge to put forth.

You're still putting forth this idea to the general public, very vocally, that you want to do the things that Republicans want you to do. And you want to give the president more power to shut down the border if they feel it reaches a certain number. Do you wanna give a Republican president, specifically Donald Trump, who is probably gonna be the fucking president, do you wanna give them that power?

And so to put forth this plan, and now you get all these tweets from like uh uh very like what chris murphy and a lot of like brian um yeah like this is sort of like the reasonable like the the lefty dems uh in the senate as they i think like to frame themselves but like like i'm baffled by this why the republicans do this like, they can't even do this. And we, you know, I can't believe they're voting against their interests and all this stuff. And it's like, are you faking it?

In which case, don't fake it. Just like say the things you mean. It's weird to play this weird like messaging game of like, I don't get it. And if you if you're not faking it, wake the fuck up, guys. What? not faking it wake the fuck up guys what um i don't the whole thing is just a mess and like it's the messaging is a mess and it's all these sort of mixed ideas and at the end of the day you get the democratic party putting forth a right-wing immigration plan and that's what happened right whether or not it passed whether or not it's the

republicans fault whatever that's what they did and now we all know that so how are you going to talk about it when donald trump brings it up and you can say well he stopped it from happening because he wanted this to be an issue which i'm sure they'll say that because that's true he wanted the deal to not happen so that he could run on this issue. But that's not that. I just don't think that's effective against you putting forward the plan. Yeah, I don't know. It's like it's like putting forth like, you know, we got a Muslim Muslim ban.

The Republicans didn't want to do the Muslim ban when I was a president and I really wanted to do it. And it's their fault. It's like, well, fuck you. I don't know. Frustrating. Yeah. i really wanted to do it and it's their fault it's like well fuck you i don't know frustrating yeah it's very frustrating disingenuous it is so alienating yeah to the people that right now you're skating on thin ice you know the people that you should actually be concerned about showing up and and carrying you through uh feel you know betrayed by this

i always i know i said this last week or a version of it but doesn't matter who's in office this is a problem or depending on how you look at it the not a problem people will be leaving their country coming here which is a good thing. It's important. There's economic growth with that. This is a vital part of our economy. I'm told this is the best country in the world. I've told that that is true.

But if it is a concern, we might as well be real about the fact that it's just going to increase. The amount of people wanting to come here is only going to increase. Why is that? Why is that happening? What are things that can be done to support people on a humanitarian level? I don't know. We just look at this all wrong. And at its core, we should be letting people come here.

We need them. Yeah, and helping them get work permits and helping them stay and like there are so many like they're all these there's so many old cases of people who came you know 5 10 15 years ago who are still like dealing with this stuff and uh just like being like yeah i don't know uh there are there are paths forward that also can frame immigration and more open borders as a positive thing. Right. Which it is and can be and is. Jonathan included some excerpts from The Nation, which, you know, is putting forth the argument, the case for open borders. And, yeah, it's compelling.

You know, immigrants tend to contribute more to a country in taxes than they take in welfare. So even if you're taking a job, let's say that contribution, that's still contributing to the economy and creating more jobs. I mean, this we shouldn't have to even rely on an economic argument to make this right even like it's one of those weird things where it's like you can make this argument which is a true thing about the situation but it always feels like kind of like well economically it's a benefit and we're actually taking their money and like they're not benefiting from it but like you'd think that people who like hate immigrants and are against it uh would would would be open to

to hearing that i guess that's why i think it's important to at least acknowledge it because it to me shows how bad faith a lot of these arguments are how it's not about jobs or this that or the other there's something much more insidious and othering of people. Oh, totally. We see. But anyway, yeah, that's why I think it's still important to point it out, even though it's like. Well, we see on the X, the everything app that we all use for everything. Oh, you mean Twitter? Our payments, our phone calls. We use it for everything.

I seen so much over the past couple of weeks, specifically from the guy who owns the everything app, but from his little cohort, his his little little quasi nazi little freaks but like just all in on uh immigration is terrible which again is weird because like elon don't you care about like population and stuff and like uh declining fertility rates and those we should have more people whatever it doesn't matter but so against immigration and framing it like you know all these violent criminals all this violent crime look at all these violent migrants and obviously there's we've talked many times about the sort of dehumanization of immigrants specifically and like ah the the beast at the at the at the border and like that attitude and how fucking gross it is but also just this ramping up of just the the idea of of the violent

migrant but the truth is that immigrants don't commit more crime than citizens and in fact uh a lot of data shows that they commit fewer crimes than citizens of the country especially somebody that is trying put everything into coming here to start a new life right why they are hyper aware of not doing something bad right and like send money back home make it make a safe uh place for their the rest of their family to come and and so on but like just the data doesn't show it just makes it clear that's just not in reality like there's there's something broken from the reality that they are presenting and then you get situations like this a day or two ago on uh a friend of the show sean hannity had uh was doing this interview at this protest and during this segment these people just beat the shit out of this uh who they

suspected was a migrant it's on camera uh you can go find it that person wasn't a migrant um even if they were uh it would be bad but like it creates this perception of this false reality that we need to fear all migrants and anybody with like a slightly darker skin tone is suspect. And then you get situations where these people just like get beat up and abused for simply existing in this false reality that people like friend of the show, Sean Hannity and owner of the Everything app

are supporting and creating for people and they're fanning the flames. And then I don't know, it's just really gross. And it's bizarre to have an example literally on screen in the, in the midst of the thing being discussed. And like you see the fear and then you see the result of the fear. Yeah.

And it's on tape and it aired on television. And it's and it was just a person from the Bronx. And that doesn't matter, because even if it wasn't a U.S., like a person who lives here from the Bronx, it would still be awful of just like this is a they were like they claimed or she shoplifted. I don't know. Who knows? But just a hate crime on camera on Fox News. Great. Well done.

It blew me away. And that's why like the fact that it is hard to find a mainstream publication that will frame this issue. It like everyone's like, well, this is how they want to address the crisis at the border. And I'm not saying the New York Times needs to come out for open borders, though it would be nice. It would be. But every one of these articles should present maybe above the 15th paragraph that what we were just talking about,

that immigrants don't commit more crimes than than native-born american citizens that they are more likely to move where there are job openings and they're less fixed in where they they settle that people who were born here which is good for them because they have work and it's good for us because it boosts the economy the the congressional budget office announced this week that the US economy will be $7 trillion larger over the next 10 years, generating more than a trillion dollars in additional federal revenue because of the influx of immigration. Right here, there's data, there's positive things that are happening because of the influx of immigration. So why is it uniformly

referred to as a crisis? It's a humanitarian crisis if we're apprehending hundreds of thousands of people. And both parties are like, well, that's where you start. And then we can maybe disagree on the finer points. But this is how we all agree we should handle this. What? Yeah, exactly. It's been settled.

The reality has been settled despite evidence in a lot of different uh aspects of it to the contrary and it would be nice uh obviously the new york times but like any just any publication talking about this just like mention these things in that context because there's so much noise out there there's so much noise from bad faith actors with platforms and people don't have any context when they're reading these stories they just hear crisis they just think that and they don't have any context for what that could potentially mean in a positive sense there's only the fear-mongering from both sides yeah and then like maybe you'll get like a little bit like you're like, Jonathan, you're saying like maybe after the 15th or 16th paragraph, they might mention like economically it helps or like and this. But this this person who was I'm reminded of we covered this brief piece from Tucker Carlson like four or five years ago.

It was a National Geographic and it was about this town, Haz Pennsylvania and it was about the immigration there and uh Tucker talked about like what a problem it is it's terrible like look what it's doing and like everyone's scared of immigrants and so on um and he ignores the other parts of the article uh that were later in the article about how yeah and then after like a few a few months went by and like now I'm starting to like learn Spanish and it's really cool. And like talking about the ways in which the town has been enriched by these migrants. And but like you can't mention those parts because that goes against this reality that we're trying to create of everybody is scary, actually. And we need to keep everybody out. That even scared white people after a little while will realize, oh, this has enriched and benefited my community. Yes, exactly. And there's just so many examples of ways in which places and things are enriched, like whether it's culturally, economically, like

you can talk about this issue in many, many different ways um and it all seems to point to like it's okay we don't need to be so scared of this or alternately you know we could just beat up some guy on tv because he's not as white as we are so i don't know which one i don't know which one of those is better but i don't know it's so hard to decide between the two equal options. You know, it's not hard to decide when to go to an ad. Gotta go to an ad, baby. We get to go to an ad, baby.

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ad I've been told. Not multiple. Just the one. Alright, well, what do we got next? Ooh! The future. Is now next oh the future is now and the future is apple vision pro thirty five hundred dollars what the fuck i knew that it was thirty five hundred dollars i just that was a believable reaction it was i'm um in case i haven't mentioned it this episode i am an actress available for hire oh like kyle mclaughlin well like that kind of an actor exactly same tier perfect okay yeah yeah you might remember that we bonded over that a few weeks ago but uh do you want me to talk about

this yeah i do talk about it and then i'll act surprised like i haven't read it before yeah you can you can go to the you can go to the apple store and buy a vision pro it's 3500 it's their headset if you're online i can you've probably seen some of their uh videos of that appear to be staged of like guys getting out of cyber trucks and then doing minority report stuff with their hands moving panels there are bits out there i feel like everybody whenever anybody sees anybody with apple vision apple vision pro they're like look at this dork doing this and some of it's like no he knows he's doing a thing yeah he's slamming the door of a cyber truck and looking like a dope um and like there are people who mean it and when i was like researching this but like my instinct is so like well this is stupid and no one will ever want this or want to do anything

with it but then i was like let's come at this in good faith you're overestimating people you know i want to see like does this thing work is it like valuable and i read a bunch of reviews and and i encourage people to go read reviews at tech crunch the verge did a very thorough review i read drew mcgary and sf Ed Zitron, all very good. The overall feeling seems to be that it's like very ambitious and kind of overwhelming and cool when you first put it on to see how amazing some stuff looks right in front of you, but that it's the first generation of this product. And so it's going to take them a while to work out some of the kinks,

like having your eye fix on stuff or having to look at the individual keys of a virtual keyboard and then pinch it to type. I don't think anyone's going to want to do that. And one of the big things they talked about is you look stupid and it isolates you from others because it's this huge headset on your head when you're out in the real world and one thing that the

editor-in-chief of the verge said was like in order for me to use this regularly it would have to be a better experience than just existing in the world and I'm not sure that it is mm-hmm so you're left with this thing of like well if it's cool to just sit at home and watch movies, great, then it's like a novelty product that I'm not going to pay $3,500 for and we'll wait till the price comes down. Or if it's only good for multitasking when I'm at work,

well, then my boss should get one for me and I don't want one. That's just like, why would I want this myself? And it feels like it's hard to envision that this really will be the future, especially since we've had VR headsets for, what, 10 plus years? And I mean, I know Dave, I've never had one. Some of the stuff sounds cool about the potential abilities that it has in terms of recreating moments and putting you right back in there but in general i don't you know right back in the moment or you know you can feel like people that you've lost are still alive or you know what you can do with gaming what you can do with yes

entertainment i haven't heard any of this people experiencing moments stuff i was just reading about it you know yeah they're like imagine if you could have like of a home video like played out right in front of you and so it is really like minority report right you feel like you're there yeah or like that black mirror episode this is the drew mcgary for sf gate you know i swiped to a spatial video of a family and the family was there with me again not my family but if it had been my family i would have been overcome uh you know i could see that being so beautiful i would love to have people that i've lost back in you know but also that sounds heartbreaking in a way well right is it it's abnormal to be able to do that

in ways and maybe maybe it maybe it there's all it's all positives but i can see there being an aspect of the ability to pull that moment up at like instantly and have it be this real like very like crystal clear thing um in your space too like you know there's a separation of of that when you're like watching it on a screen or like looking at a photo as opposed to like no it's like it's like they're really here i don't know what how that would affect a person um but ultimately even out outside of just that i not to be like wary of new technology but i am wary of things that make us feel more isolated that remove you from actual interactions from our natural state of being because we're already struggling with that um as a society of adapting to technology and how it changes our relationships and our work and it's

it's like we're just doubling down on isolating ourselves yeah yeah creating these also like speak speaking of like constructed realities it's leading toward a world where and this you know it's true everybody everybody has their own experience and own perception of the world and stuff but we're creating this world where like no you can literally create your own reality and walk around through it while other people are in their other own reality and walking around through it and so you're in the real world the real physical world talk like walking past people but they have a completely different thing going on and again it's just like that that weird isolation and atomization of people from each other but like even more so even more like even more in the physical world are people

being separated from each other um and living in their own world and like what is this you know what kind of like are there going to be regular i saw like people it's like posting these things like and these things you can do with it and like what's to stop uh there was what was there was one like uh case study like study like uh uh where they took footage and they presented like oh you can like make ai clothes for people and like make ai versions of like the overlay over people's images and stuff and like what's to stop like freak like weird fucking perverts from being weird and perverted with their weird little pervert programs walking around the world with like ai AI images of people over the real person. So weird.

And like also, sorry, folks, but eventually you're going to have to pay a fee so that ads don't pop up in your vision in real life. This looks neat. All the screens eventually ads are going to be flying at you as you walk around through the world uh it honestly sounds so stressful to me to have all of that happening it's like walking through time square but like in like in your direct line of vision all the time like that video of that guy skateboarding with him on like you dumb dumb that's not safe well i don't think that i don't

think it works i think those are all fake i'm pretty sure there's a function on it where it doesn't really work in that way if you're walking or moving it is one of the fake ones i mean they're all fake but right i just the idea of it that i'm just saying that doesn't seem like something i want to do fake or not like that's not selling it to me to be out in the world with it on right it's this and it's this sort of like technology where like there are cases where it's like oh that would be useful i saw one of like again like some fake thing but like a pilot wearing them and like i can envision some situation where like oh yeah you've got like all this data in front of you all uh on all these screens and like you know if if it's the technology's good and lined up well then then it can have like certain like, you know, the horizon can be on the on the window.

And like there's information and things that could probably be beneficial in those kinds of scenarios. But just like the regular everyday thing, it just seems like a real drag. like real drag. Yeah, it seems like a little bit to me, it seems like desperation from Apple to kind of keep the magic going. Because when smartphones were introduced, we weren't really thinking about some of the drawbacks. And there wasn't this there was such a hopefulness with tech of like, oh, I could see how this would really improve my life. I could see how this would become really useful and maybe make me less stressed because I'd be more connected to people and stuff like that. It didn't end up doing that, but there was a sense of hopefulness. And now I see this and it's just like, well, that's one step closer to the dystopia. Like I'm not saying people won't want this and it won't

become a part of our lives. And in 15 years, we won't all have to have these things on so that we can be pinged with- Oh, right. Yeah yeah they'll be smaller they'll look less stupid and but i resent it yeah i resent i mean this is maybe me becoming an old freaking woman but i've resented it for a long time this kind of shit you're like stop making me do these things but it becomes a thing that everybody uses then you have to use it as well at some point. How long can you hold out? I do think people will want to still, when they're really in the office,

in the world, doing interpersonal stuff, you want to look someone in the eyes. One hopes, yeah. It's just the way we operate. And there'll be, you know, 15, 10 years, there'll be a version that's much smaller

with like audio stuff and uh you know maybe neural link will be involved and it'll make you uh you know you're having a meeting at the beach and like the neural link is like actually you you feel the wind you feel the wind on your face and you'll feel the wind on your face but you know uh there are elements of like oh i can have this like conference call with people and we're in the space together right um eventually it'll look better where like you can turn to your left in your own home and much like the jedi council in the star wars prequels you'll be in the room and you'll see them you'll be able to look and you'll be able to quote unquote look people in the eye

and there will be this uh resemblance of like social people in the eye, and there will be this resemblance of like social interaction in the real world. And I can see benefits to that, but I can also see like how that can be a detriment to like other parts of society. So it's a real. Yeah, well, and you won't be engaging with the person themselves. Like you can say like, I want I want my office life to feel like the jedi council so i'm gonna turn randy into mace windu and jeff will be yoda and then uh there will be the guy with

the beard the guy with the long neck i'm sure you know the names of these uh kiati yodel you're no there's no yodel there is a y. She looks kind of like Yoda, but is not the same species as Yoda. Kit Fisto. Oh, Kit Fisto. Everyone knows that. Everyone knows that person. Everyone knows that weird pervert. Yeah.

Anyway, that's who you'll be having your meetings with in 15 years. Well, right, because you have no control over what they are perceiving you as. Oh, Christ. Got some fucking Yacht yadi mundi shit up in here um and again like the weird like again like you're saying like yeah these like you can't stop perverts from what they want to see right um it's uh i don't care what else we got. Try it. Let's do it. So just before we started recording the special counsel, Robert K. Herr, who was investigating Biden's use of classified documents, released his report, decided not to file any criminal charges against Biden. However, had really serious concerns about his willful use of these classified documents. He kept documents about Afghanistan, notebooks with handwritten entries implicating

sensitive intelligence sources and methods, and then shared all that stuff with the ghostwriter who wrote his memoir, Promise Me Dad, in 2017 and knew that material was classified. And then in deciding not to prosecute Biden, said, quote, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury as he did during our interview with him as a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory. Woof. And suggested that no one was going to want to convict a former president well into his 80s who did not exude a mental state of willfulness.

And we should point out that all this stuff happened before he was president. That's when he kept the documents from when he was vice president. he was president that's when he kept the documents from when he was vice president yeah this is all pretty uh wild and uh i would say so there's there's a hashtag trending right now and it is uh biden exonerated and uh all the you know the standard blue no matter who's are are jumping in on that and i understand uh to an extent because technically he was in that um they found that uh he you know unlike donald trump he complied when requested the documents were requested right like that's what they part of it is that like well yeah then we were like give us the documents and he's like okay i got the documents and there is an aspect also i think it's it's so funny because i'm part of the reason he uh

kept these uh was that like he wanted to like have this bit of stuff showing like i was actually against afghanistan going to afghanistan and i knew that that war was going to be like not go well it's just funny because like that's kind of the like the reasoning is very similar to trump in that like i wanted i wanted my little secret documents i was the president i want the i want the stuff you know but he complied when asked for them but again the reasoning given is that he's old and can't remember stuff um he didn't remember that he was vice president in 2014 it's not good folks it's not good uh this happened before he was president and he's now been very beat up by his four years this is it but yes you're right technically exonerated in terms of this criminal liability but this is the, but hooray,

our guy's too old and feeble to be held accountable. It's so funny, like, to be like, exonerated. Yeah. Did you read the other parts? I'll just read this passage, I guess, real quick. It's, in his interview with our office, Mr. Biden's memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended.

Quote, if it was 2013, when did I stop being vice president? 2016. And forgetting or technically 2017 and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began in 2009. Am I still vice president? Still. What a what a weird word to put in there. Are you still vice president 2009? My God, man. He did not remember even within several years when his son Beau died, and his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. had a real difference of opinion with General Carl Eikenberry, when in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama. Just a little snippet, little snippets about how he's really old and maybe not the best choice.

Not fit for office? To lead the nation for four and a half more years folks i'm just so dreading this election well it's rough because also because also they're like there are lucid moments and like there are moments where during speeches it's like look at that guy that guy used to be with it um and he can read a speech and he can yell it and be passionate and not mess up the words and complete thoughts but then there are these other moments that are very prevalent that are very easy to clip out and even if you think that they're not representative of him as a whole he does it a lot and it's alarming and it's the thing kind of thing like people were talking about his age

four years ago i don't have to mention this on the podcast we've talked about this before uh and it's a well-known positive we've talked about i'm sure well here but this specific thing of about like when you're the president and we all know this everybody knows this when you're the president it's the most stressful job you can have if maybe one of them maybe something else is more stressful but it's incredibly stressful job you can look at a young president when they start their term and you can look at them four years later and they are gray you can look at a slightly aging person and four years later they're fucking old and part of that is just the natural aging process and part of it is the job is extremely stressful

you don't get a lot of sleep you're it's it's it's the president and we know that it does that to a person it accelerates uh your aging it accelerates like problems that you have like little things about your personality it highlights them and if you were maybe a little too old to be the president four years ago and then you become the president where are you now and where will you be in four years it's something to be considered i would say it's something to be considered no those are just like the the situation and that's a thing where it's like even talking about this stuff just like so many reactions like so you want trump to win no no no no no you're not hearing just the plain facts that it would be good if literally anybody else um was able to run and i also want to mention this is important to mention the the special counsel was uh robert k her uh he's a

trump appointee um there is an aspect of this that is very like right wing coded political sort of like partisan attempt to use this as like uh it's because joe biden's too old and stuff um so i think that's like important context to give. It doesn't necessarily like change. No, it doesn't. But it is important to understand where this is coming from and what the motivation is, you know, like all of it's fair. Yeah.

And like, you don't want to feed into like right wing narratives like, oh, this thing is dropped. And now we're sharing these quotes and this and this. And look how old he is, because that is part of that is part of the context but like they're not making up these things i don't think like they're not lying that he didn't quite remember when he was vice president so these are valid concerns but i do want to acknowledge that there is this other context amidst it yeah you know it's possible but also if you're the if you're the if you get to be the vice president you remember the years you were the vice president i feel it feels like that would stand out a bit in your mind

i mean best case scenario he's very flustered under duress in this situation still not great we're we we do make fun of every time donald trump says something that makes him seem old and feeble we should be able to acknowledge well yeah that's the thing like you know uh yeah uh trump's uh bad and all the things he says are bad and yeah he has trouble speaking to uh in a different way they both sort of emulate their oldness in different ways yeah it presents different different flavors um and uh in additional context biden has you know uh kind of responded this a little bit and pointed out you know i complied with the entire thing as they point as they mentioned there i put up no roadblocks this is is Biden's speech? This is Biden's response to it. He's like mentioning it and making remarks about this

and basically pointing out, yeah, it's an exhaustive investigation, went back more than 40 years. I even gave a five-hour in-person interview on October 8th and 9th last year. I was in the middle of an international crisis. And so, you know, you're doing it the day after uh the october 7th attack on israel okay i you might be flustered we don't need to get into right now how he handled that international crisis also it's still i i just again sure context for for an old man that you know again though you're the president of the united states so exactly yeah knowing when you your job

the time parameters of your job would be a good thing to just know it would be ideal um and i've even seen like i saw somebody respond to this with like um yeah so he didn't remember some dates and remember this uh you lose your phone five times a day and don't know where you do that whatever i'm not the president i'm not the president yeah and i would never think that i should be right um so uh yeah i just wanted to basically just mention that like there's others there is a political aspect of this and i don't necessarily think it's feeding into right-wing narratives to share uh basic concerns about yeah the oldness of this guy um cody yeah we see it yeah what's up very fair and balanced thank you so much tmcr we're doing prayer hands as we always do whenever we

say that anyway we did it y'all we got to the end of this episode we did it we talked about stuff and we had a great time doing it we also promoted our merch store cool and now i'm gonna say like and subscribe oh good and put a comment you know we're supposed to say it all the time and i forget but i'm saying it now sometimes you forget like and subscribe laugh and get rich laugh and get rich get out there laugh and get rich. Laugh and get rich. Get out there. Laugh and get rich. Figuratively. Literally laugh. Figuratively get rich. And heck, I guess there's nothing else for me to say, but we love you very much. That's much thing you say.

Sometime in the early 80s, REO Speedwagon's airplane made an unannounced middle-of-the-night landing. This is my friend Kyle McLaughlin, the star of Twin Peaks. And he's telling me about how he discovered a real-life Twin Peaks in rural North Carolina, not far from where he filmed Blue Velvet. What was on the plane was copious amounts of drugs coming in from South America. Supposedly, Pablo Escobar went looking for other spots, quiet, out-of-the-way places to bring in his cocaine. My name is Joshua Davis, and I'm an investigative reporter.

Kyle and I talk all the time about the strange things we come across, but nothing was quite as strange as what we found in Varnumtown, North Carolina. There's crooked cops, brother against brother. Everyone's got a story to tell, but does the truth even exist? Welcome to Varnumtown. Varnumtown is available wherever you listen to podcasts.